it's just a shot away
by createandconstruct
Summary: Isn't the world supposed to take mercy on the young and innocent? (2.21 Episode tag) - rated M for violence


**_Fic Title:_ _Gimme Shelter - The Rolling Stones_**

 ** _In-story lyrics:_ _For What It's Worth - Buffalo Springfield (honestly this one is just the epitome of a perfect song for 2.21)_**

* * *

 _"War… Children… It's just a shot away."_

 _-_ The Rolling Stones, _Gimme Shelter_

* * *

There's no air for her to breathe.

There's no thought to call for help.

There's no way she's getting out of this alive.

Because she's read this story a hundred times.

The psychotic parent who killed and maimed and raped and then decided it was finally enough before he marked his end with the bodies of his wife and children by his corpse's side.

She's watched this crime documentary. Seen the blurry crime scenes through Jughead's laptop screen. The splattered blood on the wall, the censored bodies in the empty halls. She'd curled into Jughead's side and laughed into his neck over missteps by the police, fingerprints forgotten by killers, the insanity that a crime went unsolved for twenty years when all the pieces were right _there._

She's not laughing now.

Her father kneels before her feet and lets his head tilt as he asks her a useless question, but all she can think is how so, _so_ incredibly sorry she is for ever thinking of those stories with anything less than sorrow or horror.

 _"Who am I, Betty?"_

A mix of words and memories flick around her head. Her father towers above her, his hands scooping down to pick her up. He twirls her around, laughing along to her squeals and giggles - her high-pitched voice sings, _"Again, Daddy! Again, again!"_

" _Say it."_

There's a quake through her whole body that makes her head shake. She hears it now, her father's voice. It brushes through her mind and lies gently over the robotic tone she'd prayed to never ever hear again after Mr. Svenson's chest exploded in red and his body flopped into the road.

She wonders what's worse. Knowing and dying with her father's face - " _Why are you doing this to me?" She'd begged him to answer months ago, her face wet and hot under the black fabric of his hood -_ or dying like the children in her documentaries, clueless in their sleep, never knowing their father was the one to bring the axe to their throats - " _Again, Daddy! Again, again, again!"_

She takes too long.

He shouts, " _Say who I am!"_

She's said the name a thousand times, around tears, around snot, around hoarse breath and regret.

But never before has speaking the Black Hood's name nearly made her puke. Never before has she been left so devoid of hope.

 _"You shot Mr. Andrews,"_ she begins.

 _You held my hand when I wobbled on my ice skates._

 _"You killed Ms. Grundy."_

 _You lifted me to put the star on the Christmas tree._

 _"The Sugarman."_

 _Inside jokes._

 _"Midge."_

 _Hugs goodbye._

 _"Doctor Masters."_

 _Dad._

He steps back to the center of the room, satisfied with her words and the pathetic dribble of questions falling from her lips. Her eyes are wet, her spine is straight, her wrists are free, and her feet aren't bound but her body can't move more than tiny shivers in her chair. She can't escape.

He blames her, again. Only this time there's no mask. Only this time she can see his face. See the sick gratitude squinting in his eyes. Read the thanks he has for her hand in inspiring the scar in Mr. Andrews' side, the slices in Midge's corpse, the opening in Doctor Masters' throat, and the inevitable final breath he'll make her, and her mother take.

She once told Jughead, gasping for breath, tipping off the final edge, that everything was falling apart. Her family was at its end. Her life was crippled and would be forced to slowly crawl its way to ruin with missing sisters, broken marriages, and splattered brains on kitchen floors.

But the hand that used pat her head and take her hand to help her finish her ballet twirls gestures to the black recorder and Betty knows then, she never truly knew _the end,_ until it turned and looked at her with her father's eyes.

" _I want everyone to understand, when they find us."_

Like the little children of her and Jughead's crime stories, left at the mercy of their fathers' bloody hands.

There's no one here to save her.

.

.

 _"There's something happening here_  
 _But what it is ain't exactly clear_  
 _There's a man with a gun over there_ _  
_ _Telling me I got to beware"_

.

.

There's no normal anymore.

There's no shadowed corner he doesn't check.

There's no time he comes home and feels relief.

There's no chance for him to think of fear until it's staring him in the face.

Until it grabs him.

It wraps arms and hands around his back and pulls him flush against its chest. His vision spins and his brain takes little to nothing in, but he already knows who it is.

Archie's unprepared but his body isn't. It takes control.

He fights the pushing, shoving force and presses all his weight to a single foot and throws the blur of black and limbs over his shoulder. He comes crashing down with the momentum. The glass of shattered plates and splintered wood of the coffee table prick his back and slice scratches over his knuckles, but he doesn't feel it.

He _doesn't feel it._

He feels the roll and then he's flat against the floor and at _his_ mercy. He kicks and twists and chokes on air as he pulls an arm loose and cracks his fist along soft fabric worn on a hardened jaw. His hand aches and starts to swell but he follows after the blow as the squirming figure fights him on the ground. He barely has a chance to take another hit before he's sent sprawling through the air and skidding across the hardwood floor.

He doesn't feel it.

He's on his feet. His knees and legs have to catch up. His vision wobbles with black and a familiar shine that he knows, that he remembers, that he blinks to see better even though he already knows.

He's looking down the barrel.

The air is tight outside and inside his lungs. The chaos let him punch and kick and fight and ignore what he knew was pressing him down against his floor but now he has to freeze and _see._

He doesn't feel it.

He doesn't have to.

He sees it.

He smells it.

He hears it.

He's back _there._

He tries to steady himself as the gun thrusts towards him but he's not sure which one he's staring down.

The green of the living room walls bleeding into fluorescent pink and morning light.

The smell of home and dad, and dog hair, and microwaved leftovers enters his nose and falls across his tongue as just the thick cooper scent of his father's blood.

His heart is thumping, his breathing erratic, his body is stuck in purgatory, and he's at the diner again.

The Black Hood is shaking a gun at his head. Blood is seeping into his sneakers. Sweat and terror are dripping like tears from his skin. But his hands aren't behind his head and the walls closing in are _home,_ even while green eyes peer through black holes and lock to his own.

 _The_ green eyes.

He must be drowning because the Black hood's jaw is moving, and sound must be splintering around his ears like screams, but he's deaf to everything except the twist of here and now and _then_ and the mantra in his head.

 _I knew it, I knew it, I knew it, IknewitIknewitIknewitDadVeronicaMom-_

 _I'm dead._

The crack over a skull comes before the final cock of a gun and then his dad is there.

 _"You okay?"_ he asks and then makes a joke. And no, he's not and he never will be and even though his dad and Veronica have asked him that a thousand times it's only know that it makes him want to cry.

Not that he has time to.

The Black Hood is up, his blood goes cold, his hands grab for the soft blue material of his father's sweater without a plan except for keeping this from happening again.

The gun raises. His father yells. The air explodes.

He doesn't feel it.

He slides down under the limp weight of his father, it's the only smooth movement he makes. His hands are moving, clutching, shaking around that soft familiar sweater. It's the kind his father always wears. The kind his small grubby hands used to pull and tug to his nose, so he could breathe the smell in when he was just a kid.

Feet scatter away through the front door. For the first time in months he doesn't care.

" _Dad, Dad."_

Deep guttural groans mix with his panicked begging. The nightmare he's been praying to never happen again is replaying in reality and for all his time with anger, fight, and tears he can't do anything but tremble around his father's torso at the very thought of finding blood.

But he doesn't.

His father's hands move and pull that soft sweater that smells like home and safe and _dad_ to show no skin or red. Just bullet and black.

" _I'm good."_

Relief is fast and hot as it bubbles through his body. The heart under his palm doesn't stutter or fade like he remembers it did.

There's no blood.

There's no fear.

There's just adrenaline and the crack in his legs as he gives chase like he knows he _has_ to.

He stands in the road more exhausted than he's ever been.

More afraid.

Because he was _right._

And there's no one to protect them.

.

.

 _"There's battle lines being drawn_  
 _Nobody's right if everybody's wrong_  
 _Young people speaking' their minds_ _  
_ _Getting so much resistance from behind"_

.

.

There's no trick up her sleeve.

There's no knight in shining armor.

There's just a little sofa chair to use as a barricade for the door.

Her nails trail after her mother's to pull the piece of furniture into place. She scatters away without a look back to see if it's angled right or if they're safe. She hears the feet coming on the other side.

The floor shines and almost makes her slip as she sprints across the room. Her body stopping only when it hits the board with her father's plans.

She thought she'd been afraid before. When shots rang out over head. When her father pulled her close, her mother trembling and whimpering beside her ear, their backs pressed against the podium, her mind whirling at the thought that every bullet loose could be ripping through her friends. Through Betty. Through Archie, _Archie, Archie, he was on stage, she didn't see him, she couldn't see him, was he, was Mr. Andrews-_

She thought she knew fear.

Her back presses against the layers of papers as her mother moves wildly across her father's desk. The door bangs twice before blowing open. The sofa thrown aside. The man walks in and a shrill squeak escapes her.

She knew _nothing._

She knew nothing of fear or death or terror until it was striding through her front door. Until her mother was the only thing standing between it and her.

And it's not just death she fears, feeling her spine bruise as she tries to press herself flat against the table. It's dying first, it's dying second, it's torture, it's rape, it's knowing she's not alone, it's knowing she'll have to _watch_ it happen or her mother will have to watch it happen to _her._

It's the turn of the man's head as he locks sight on her.

It's every feeling that tears through her body as he takes a step.

It's one shot.

It's two shots.

It's three.

Four.

And then he drops to the floor.

She never knew.

Mr. Andrews' body fades in, swimming into place over the stranger's corpse. Over the blood pouring across the floor towards her mother's feet.

Archie's face and tears and quivering form - _after nightmares he can barely talk about, nightmares she can barely fathom, nightmares that have them clutching each other's skin and warmth and life_ \- they fade in and lie across the bloody form of his father's phantom. She presses a hand to her mouth and turns to the window as bile rises to her throat.

She never knew it was that _easy_ to die.

She wonders if it was that quick for Midge, and then regrets the thought when she _gags._

Because she knows it _wasn't._

A hand presses to her back and whispers comfort to her. But the palm is shaking and the comforts choke as her mother wraps her arms around her as they stand between the hold of nausea and the sin that promises damnation.

It's over.

But there's no relief.

.

 _._

 _"What a field day for the heat_  
 _A thousand people in the street_  
 _Singing songs and carrying signs_ _  
_ _Mostly saying, 'hooray for our side':_

 _._

.

There's no throbbing swell spreading across his cheek.

There's no dizzying spell spinning through his head.

There's no broken curse slipping from his lips.

There's no chance for him to gain his bearings and turn a smug eye up to the face caked in Kiss makeup.

Because after the first hit, there's no time.

Or there is.

It's just _endless._

It's the first fist that hits - the only one he can count - and then its pounding, pounding, _pounding._

Into his stomach. Onto his arm. Against his jaw. Against his jaw. Against his jaw.

Pound, pound, pound.

Penny.

She calls over the rumble. He can hear but can't think. Her taunts harden the knuckles bending over him and give the onslaught new speed. The ground is hard and safe, and he tries to bend and curl, dig himself down to hide some tiny piece of himself that's being pounded, pounded, _pounded_ into gravel.

A fist against his cheek. A fist against his head. A foot against his neck. A foot against his back. Against his back. Against his back. Again, again, again, _again._

The ground rejects him, holds him like a slab of meat on a cutting board, open for game. Open for the sharp toe that catches him across the jaw.

He feels the whine slip out the same time something slips beneath his ribs. Or maybe it _is_ his ribs. Jughead's sure he's crumbling into dust.

" _Sounds like he didn't like that one. Hit 'em again, boys!"_

Fists open to hands that grab and pull him up. They yank him straight, fighting against the gravity pulling him down. His knees dig against the ground. The wet slobber dripping from his jaw makes its way to his collarbone, sticking in a wet puddled mess. Time is at a standstill as they hold him up.

For just a moment the pounding has stopped.

" _Big serpent hero, huh?"_ Someone hisses, and then _he's_ hissing as some clasps his jaw and pulls it up. "Don't _tell me you're crying for daddy already?"_

There's no hitting, no kicking, but someone spits, and it splats in his eye. The one still open and unswollen. More eyes, open and sharp in the light, dance, swirling above wide stretches of teeth.

His own teeth ache, his entire jaw throbs, his tongue is heavy. He can't do more than let his head roll against the hand at his shoulder holding him up.

Another hand, stretching from the dark in front of him, brushes up his cheek and into his hair - and for a moment there's time. More time, a different kind of time. Time where he can think of Betty and her voice, and her hands, and how hard it is to think and find a memory of how she _feels_ when his mind can't escape the present of how his body feels-

And then the hand clenches around the hair at the back of his head.

" _Don't worry, you'll be cryin' soon."_

It's a crack against his ja-

A crack against his chee-

A crack against-

A crack-

A-

 _Crack._

He lurches right and left. Whichever way the hits send him, but always coming center again. The hold at his shoulders imprisoning him in hell.

The fists whip down then, abandoning the mush around his skull, pummeling once, once, once once, once-

The last hit into his chest - he can't keep count, every time is like the first time, every time is just as brutal - his stomach explodes into his throat. He hacks over a scream and gobs thick puss through his lips.

It splats between his knees where his flickering vision drills a hole into the ground.

The ground that still refuses to swallow him up. That glows with the hues of the fire nearby. That may be the reason every inch of his split, bleeding skin is _burning._

His entire body rolls backward into the hands holding him. He's desperate to remove the weight from the torn-up pieces of his chest, so, so desperate to find a lull in his punishment.

It doesn't work. It just makes his spine scream and makes another fist cut across his jaw.

Across his cheek.

Across his eye.

Into his _cheST- please gOD! He can't! He can't, not again not again please make them stop, someone please-_

" _Ah, there we go."_ A tongue surrounded in white and black comes too close to Jughead's war ruined skin and _licks._ He shivers with the little bit of life he has left and is suddenly petrified that something worse than fists and feet could come - _he wants to run, he wants to run, he shouldn't have, and he should have listened, and Dad, Dad'll come, he has to come, someone has to- please someone-_

 _"The serpent prince finally begs."_

 _"-se…"_

 _"I'm sorry what was that, Jug - head."_

A swirl of blonde dips into his one dimension of vision. It leans toward the side of his swollen shut eye.

He's falling. Somehow slipping into the rejecting ground, his mind wandering down the path of blonde hair - _and pink sweaters and soft hands and warm lips and love, he loves her, he loves her so much and he'll never_ -

The blurry face sneers and turns away. The hands along his shoulder twist him out of the leather wrapped around his arms. His jacket. They tug him from it and his body flops with the harsh movement and the ache that stretches through his arms, radiating hot and sharp at his middle.

It's dizzying even after they get it off. Even as he's steadied from his wobbling when fingers clench a fistful of his hair and yank him backwards. And long blonde strands brush by his chin and-

" _Was that you begging, Big Man?"_

 _And he can't remember._

" _Because you're gonna have to do better than that."_

 _The memory is far and good, too good, too unlike this hell of burns and blood. He's not even sure if it was ever true._

 _"You're gonna have to squeal."_

 _Did he really tell Betty he loved her?_

" _Hold him still boys."_ The blonde curtains peel open for the face of Penny to breathe inches from his nose. "I'm _gonna make sure he really feels this."_

There's no pounding.

There's no punching.

There's no kicking.

There's just hundreds of hands grabbing his limbs and pressing him sideways into the ground and the desperate broken shriek that comes wailing from his throat.

There's just a knife digging into him.

His legs kick out with no avail as his body comes alight with new desperation. Penny takes her time, the point pressing into his arm at the tip of his shoulder before slicing down, a thick divide in his skin. Every nerve is screaming. Every thought becomes obsessed with only _flee, flee, flee._

He must be saying things. He must be begging. His tongue flops uselessly around his mouth, the same way his body tries to move beyond shakes and squirms as laughter, belonging to the hundreds of hands, press him back into the ground. The rough taunts of Penny cackle in his ear, louder every time the knife pulls out, then up, then in, then down, then out, then up, then in, then down, then-

The knife hits something _hard_ and he _screams._

 _An older face flashes through his mind. His eyes are useless now, swollen or stained in red, but he somehow sees the scruff along the jaw, the lines of skin across the forehead, and the shine of pride under the face of disappointment._

He's begging aloud, and the circling laughter must hear the name that rings out in his pleas, but he doesn't care, he doesn't care, _he messed up._

 _He screwed up. He messed up. He was wrong. He's gone and ruined everything - ruined himself, just himself, because if it's just him that's good - but he's sorry, he's so, so sorry, and he'll admit it, and he'll admit everything. All he wants is for god, satan, the knife plowing against his bone to forgive him. All he wants is his father to appear. To make it all go away._

 _He wants it to end. He wants his dad._

He's sobbing. Sharp inhales. Croaking noises.

A high voice speaks in front of him again, the searing burn in his upper arm stops with a sloppy wet sound and he feels something unsheathe from his skin.

" _What goes around…"_

The voice whispers, while rubbing a hand along his cheek.

" _...comes around._ "

His head splits with a white flash away from consciousness as the hand pulls away and then returns with a hot open-hand strike. He only has enough air left in his lungs to hiccup.

" _Not so cocky now, are ya? Guess all that venom was just in the ink after all."_

Ink, skin, flesh, and bone. If any piece of him was in them, it's gone now. He wishes his mind would go too. Wishes they'd hit him hard enough that he could die.

Wishes they'd stopped.

Wishes he'd die.

Wishes someone would save him - _Dad, Dad, Dad, 'm sorry, 'm sorry, sorry, sorry, Betty- BettyBettyBettyBettysorryloveyousorry- please, someone make it stop, 'm sorry so make it-_

But he's a Jones.

Someone spits into the peeled open hole of his arm before the final order is said; voiced with the kind of tone like his corpse is a piece of garbage they'll need to hide before he starts to rot. His nose is throbbing and pressed against his face wrong, but it's filled with blood and the smell of flesh, so maybe he's already rotting away.

" _Get him outta here."_

They take him by the hair and drag him over every jagged uneven piece sticking out of the ground. He goes limp, nothing moving but the drool and tears working down the blood smeared across his face. He feels nothing except for everything. He regrets everything except nothing. He wonders if he'll die alone or under the bodies of laughing men. He prays he'll go to heaven either way. He'll get to see Betty there.

But he's a Jones.

And there's never any mercy.

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _"Paranoia strikes deep_  
 _Into your life it will creep_  
 _It starts when you're always afraid_  
 _Step out of line, the men come and take you away…"_

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **I apologize for the 'all hurt, no comfort,' but it's become a tradition of my episode tag one-shots.**

 **Let me know what you thought of this! Feedback is always appreciated and it helps me with these somewhat more experimental pieces! (Also take a listen to the two songs mentioned up top. I can't recommend them enough - especially for post episode 21 blues!)**


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